Heir to a vast Spanish ice cream and frozen chicken fortune, Campos funded the construction of the Avidesa Formula 3 car in the early 1980s. He was able to buy his way into a drive at Volkswagen Motorsport in the European Formula 3 series in 1984 but to his credit managed to win a heat at the Monza Lotteria that year. With backing from jeans company Lois he then moved to F1 with Minardi alongside Alessandro Nannini at the start of 1987. He stayed with the team until the middle of 1988 when he was replaced by Pierluigi Martini after a fruitless spell in which he retired or failed to qualify in all but one of 1987 Championship races.
He went on to a successful career in touring cars and became the Spanish Touring Car Champion of 1994 before retiring to run a racing team in the Open Fortuna series. His first driver Marc Gene won the title and landed a drive with Minardi in F1 in 1999 while his second champion Fernando Alonso also moved up to Minardi and from there to Renault. Campos Motorsport has now moved up to GP2.